Hoi Polloi

Second Life for everyone?

Gartner, yesterday at its tech symposium made a prediction that's going to set the clock ticking. It said that 80% of active Internet users will be involved in Sccond Life by 2011.

So it's not surprising that coleges are rushing into SL.

Among them are a few expected names --Columbia, Harvard, Leeds Colege, and Stanford. University of Texas has four islands!  The San Francisco museum of science, art and human perception has its Exploratium in SL. One university has held a 300 level writing seminar (on technology and society). Harvard had an 'immersive' seminar last year. The list goes on...

In one sense, Second Life is social media at its best --immersive, interactive, dynamic, and a totally opt-in environment. But it's the ability to engage in content that truly attracts me. Reuters has video, a news ticker, and downloadable documents in a rich multimedia experience you just could not have, even via a web 2.0 web site.

From the perspective of lectures, and student interacton, this will be where many other social media tools --video and movies, IM, pictures, flash animation, blogs and wikis come together.

Wikipedia as 'clearinghouse'

With so much questioning about how the media handle tragedy, there's an interesting alternative --Wikipedia.

clipped from www.nytimes.com According to the foundation that runs the various Wikipedias around the world, there were more than 750,000 visits to the main article on the shootings in its first two days, an average of four visits a second. Even The Roanoke Times, which is published near Blacksburg, Va., where the university is located, noted on Thursday that Wikipedia “has emerged as the clearinghouse for detailed information on the event.”

Got two minutes for a survey on cell phone and PC use?

If you could spare 1.8 minutes of your time, I am doing a quick survey of mobile phone and PC use.

Just 2 questions.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=290313739972

I'll be reporting results here on Friday the 27th.

SMS in rescue and networking

Suddenly there are many examples of how SMS is being put to use.

• SMS In Rescue work, Philippines
• SMS to get a taxi, Malaysia
• SMS for Bikers in Texas

But the most impressive use of SMS this week comes fron Nigeria, where cell phones give new meaning to the term 'election monitors.' The service is provided by Frontline SMS, a non-profit organiztion.

Planet Blacksburg, and the world tells NBC what they think

You can see the tide turning against the media that knowingly or unwittingly exploits the tragedy.
I've been following Planet Blacksburg --their blog. Today's post sticks it up to NBC.

The writer question's the decision to air the video mailed to the station, who wanted this kind of infamy, and got it. Of course, TV stations do it all the time, and only recently pulled back on airing the greatest hits of Bin Laden, whenever they were sent a 'package.'

The Blacksburg student newspaper had this to say:

"When the package airs on television during the six-o’clock news it becomes apparent that the motive for showing it is not to inform, but to garner ratings."

"we are not going to devote any more bandwidth to the shooter. NBC did exactly what the killer wanted by airing his message. We refuse to give him that satisfaction."

It's about time someone said that, that in order to cover the story, you have a responsibility not to the person who pitches the story to you, but to your audience, and the larger society that it impacts.

NBC, has had a flood of complaints, prompting Brian Williams to make a statement. His justification, is odd. He says he doesn't know of any news organization that would have received something of this nature and not shared it with their audience. So that makes it OK?

Social media's role in crisis

With the news that social media, including Facebook is playing a big part in the Virginia Tech tragedy, I've been expecting the case for SMS and Twitter to come up.

As much as we are grabbing RSS feeds and other Google alerts from CNN  etc, there's nothing more poignant and immediate than the blog, for instance from Planet Blacksburg,  Their student writers are on the scene, and before they go to print they can report a different nuance of the story via the blog.

"We can only publish what we know for sure, but in the blog I can tell you a little bit more of what we’ve heard,"   said one post.

PB has also begun a Twitter feed that tells you when they're posting a video to the newspaper site, or about an interview. The RSS feed for VTNews is updated at 10.10 am, 2.10 pm and 5.10 pm every day.

As for SMS, there are many cases being made for how text messaging might help in tragedies and disasters:

• A Boca Raton, FL company is launching Student Text Connect.
• VTech had apparently looked into SMS technology last year.
• One provider I know in Phoenix, AZ, Blumo, says they could deliver SMS, email, and RSS feeds simultaneously on a campus. This would be valuable for communicating to faculty, students and staff for time-sensitive communications.

Steve Rubel's Twitter lesson

This kind of thing was bound to happen, when blogs either get it wrong, or an email is fired off too quickly, only to be retracted. With social media, however, it's almost impossible to undo something said.

Steve Rubel posted comment on Twitter that said something not so nice about PC Magazine (that it is just another magazine, and it goes into the trash) but soon apologized to the Editor in chief of PC magazine, when they threatened to boycott Edelman, his employer.

"I learned a valuable lesson. Post too fast without providing context and it can elicit an unintended response.

Perhaps the incident will give Twitter users something to consider, about always using it with the broader audience in mind, even though it's a targeted communications channel.

Rather than condemning the technology, let's make sure we learn the lesson and move on. We all make mistakes, Steve. Your Open Letter was the right thing to do.

Beatles without DRM starts a 'revolution'

Beyond the Apple vs 'Apple' (the Beatles' music label) settlement, comes the refreshing news that Apple has partnered with EMI to unlock music, so to speak. As the BBC puts it, this will 'take the locks off' music.

It's an interesting strategy, not just because Steve Jobs has side-swiped the rest of the music industry, but because it basically challenges them to respond. He has put into place two models: DRM-free music at the premium price of $1.29, and the standard version (with the 'locks' in place) for the same $0.99.

Choices in music is what we have been waiting for, since the MP3 file came to stay.

From a marketing perspective, it makes a lot of sense. Like regular and premium gas, people will figure out how they derive value out of a product. This is a good start, even though the authors of "The Future of Music," a powerful book that advocated a radical change in the pricing model, appear to think it is still a bit lame.

More needs to happen, though because music is going to jump platforms even more, now that it's 'escaped' the CD straitjacket. It's going to move to newer MP3 players that perhaps won't even resemble the ones we have now, and phones, and other personal portals or digital hubs that we surround ourselves with. What then? Zune could introduce a DRM-free model soon? Besides Jobs' music strategy, independent artists may come up with more creative ways, and I hope they do, as we see in places such as Accident Hash, and RedEye.

It may be apt to quote the words Revolution, by, um, the Beatles here, who seem to talk of a 'plan.'

You say you got a real solution
Well you know
we'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We're all doing what we can

"YNRs" could add new meaning to VNRs in YouTube politics

Not to long ago politicians issued statements via Video news releases the old fashioned way -on tape.

Just two years ago, for instance, Gov. Schwarzenegger was a big user of the VNR. His administration was reportedly using it to sell his tough agenda.

But a new kinds of intro could become standard as politicians rush to employ social media.

Check the opening line of this:

clipped from www.cnn.com In the statement, posted Wednesday on YouTube, Gingrich said his comments were not an "attack" on Spanish, and he revealed he has been taking Spanish lessons "for some time now."

On Being - a different kind of newspaper

Speaking of social media, below, there's an interesting new project called On Being, by the Washington Post.

As the video team leader Jennifer Crandall notes, they are outtakes that retain the goofy and heartwarming parts.